- Basavalingappa, Vasantha;
- Bera, Santu;
- Xue, Bin;
- Azuri, Ido;
- Tang, Yiming;
- Tao, Kai;
- Shimon, Linda JW;
- Sawaya, Michael R;
- Kolusheva, Sofiya;
- Eisenberg, David S;
- Kronik, Leeor;
- Cao, Yi;
- Wei, Guanghong;
- Gazit, Ehud
The variety and complexity of DNA-based structures make them attractive candidates for nanotechnology, yet insufficient stability and mechanical rigidity, compared to polyamide-based molecules, limit their application. Here, we combine the advantages of polyamide materials and the structural patterns inspired by nucleic-acids to generate a mechanically rigid fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl (Fmoc)-guanine peptide nucleic acid (PNA) conjugate with diverse morphology and photoluminescent properties. The assembly possesses a unique atomic structure, with each guanine head of one molecule hydrogen bonded to the Fmoc carbonyl tail of another molecule, generating a non-planar cyclic quartet arrangement. This structure exhibits an average stiffness of 69.6 ± 6.8 N m-1 and Young's modulus of 17.8 ± 2.5 GPa, higher than any previously reported nucleic acid derived structure. This data suggests that the unique cation-free "basket" formed by the Fmoc-G-PNA conjugate can serve as an attractive component for the design of new materials based on PNA self-assembly for nanotechnology applications.